Blog
All Posts
Ashia Wilson is a mother and an author of Back in my Day, as well as a podcast host of Let the Healing Begin Podcast, faith-based clothing brand owner of...
Briana is committed to working for collective action and peace. She is a licensed attorney, a mediator, and an entrepreneur who's vision for the future includes mindfulness and nature.
Calief "Cai" Housen, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Career InTouch Inc., is a dynamic force in educational advocacy. A first-generation graduate from Kingston, NY, he holds a BA in Political...
Makayla is currently a junior at Kingston High School. She enjoys anything to do with social justice and wants to make an impact on people’s lives. Once she graduates, she...
Storyteller Mx. Renae Taylor is an inspiring individual with a rich background in activism and advocacy. As a 48-year-old Black, Disabled Non-Binary Trans Organizer based in Memphis, Tennessee, Renae has...
Racial Justice
– Freedom Walker (she/her) As the turbulent feelings ebb and flow during Freedom Walker’s (TinaLynn Dickerson) night in a former slave cellar, she drifts off to sleep, only to awake...
In 1954, Odell (he/him) told his third grade teacher that he wanted to be the President of the United States; she told him it would be at least 150 years...
– Shawaine (she/her) Shawaine started in a place where she was in the majority; but now, she lives in a place where she’s the minority. At 7, she left Jamaica...
– Alex (she/her) “Who will be there for me?” Rejected by her mother, 16 year old Alex carries that question with her everywhere she goes. When she is shot while...
– Tamika (she/her) Tamika, a straight-A student living up to the pressures of being a preacher’s daughter, finds herself shunned by her church community when she becomes pregnant as a...
– Martin (he/him) As a result of growing up in a violent household, Martin craves positive relationships with men but has a hard time trusting them until he meets Tom,...
– Shaniqua (she/her) As a small child, Shaniqua’s mother became too ill to care for her, forcing her to move from NYC to Virginia to live with her tough-loving grandmother...
– Rita (she/her) Rita becomes pregnant at 15 and has 4 children by the time she’s 24. She never feels like a good mom until her youngest daughter is diagnosed...
– Tyrone (he/him) At 14, Tyrone starts carrying a gun to protect himself. Today, as the Commissioner of Human Rights for Ulster County, he’s dedicated to protecting his community. #blacklivesmatter...
– Kwame (he/him) Kwame shares a story about his long and complicated relationship with his name through his journey from Brooklyn to New Jersey, and most recently, to the Hudson...
– Troy (she/her) Growing up in a white world, Troy Ellen is often criticized for not being black enough. By exploring identity through two different characters—first at 13 when she’s...
2020 is turning out to be the year of 20/20 vision. The global pandemic is revealing the inequality in the healthcare system as we are losing black and brown Americans...
ARTICLES BOOKS SUGGESTED ACTIONS VIRTUAL TRAINING & WORKSHOPS
– Beetle (they/them) After the Charlottesville tragedy, Beetle suddenly becomes Unapologetically Black, or “UAB.” However, as time passes and they experience more and more hate, Beetle’s UAB slowly turns into...
– Dr. Williams-Myers Dr. Williams-Myers always found it odd that Sojourner Truth’s story was never taught in school history. Especially considering that for his entire life she’s been watching over...
– Cassandra (she/her) In an attempt to discover her own sense of individuality and fight cultural norms, Cassandra rejects her mother’s ideals of beauty. After her passing, Cassandra realizes her...
– Byron (he/him) Seven years ago, Byron discovers that he has two cancerous tumors on his bladder, and is facing a long road to his cancer-free diagnosis. He learns that...
– Callie (they/them) Callie Jayne grew up in a white world. Faced with mental illness and addiction, they had to learn how to overcome the pressures of a predominantly white...
– Zanyell (she/her) In the face of racism and daily microaggressions, Zanyell spends years starving herself and self-harming in an attempt to disappear. Eventually, she finds love and yoga and...
– Ezra (he/him) 11-year-old Ezra is playing in the street with his two friends when the cops were called for a “disturbance.” During his questioning, Ezra begins to worry about...
Gender Equity
You don’t have a father because you never existed. That is, you existed, but only as a fear. My parents missed the boat with the birds and bees. Did they think...
It’s June 2018, and I’m on a quest for sterilization. Information about sterilization is like sacred text. I need to be prepared to fight, insist, again and again, about why...
You can bury doubt pretty deep. But at age 57, when I buy a $90 DNA test kit, I begin to unravel the truth about my own birth. A truth...
Stories for Choice is personal. It’s political. It’s for the people of Texas, and for the future of our entire nation. It is also my attempt at healing a lineage...
By Mourka (she/her) I was 19-years-old in the fall of 1966 when my friend Barbara and I drove my two-tone 1956 Chevrolet to Baltimore, Maryland, where I was to have...
BY BETTY MACDONALD (she/her) As an 18-year-old girl in the early fifties, I possess very little knowledge of my body or reproduction. It will be twenty years before The Supreme...
BY DIANA FREID (she/her) It’s 1967, I am 19 years-old, and I am pregnant. I don’t understand how this can be. I think it’s impossible to get pregnant the first...
BY ALICE TENUTO (she/her) When we’re married about a year John asks me, “Are you ready yet?” “No!” I exclaim. We get Sam, a cat. Six months later, the same...
BY SHAI BROWN (she/her) One morning when I am 14-years-old, I wake with my stomach turning. I run to the bathroom to vomit. This goes on for a few days....
Since 2012, TMI Project has offered two 10-week storytelling workshops a year in collaboration with the Mental Health Association of Ulster County (MHA). The mission of the program is to...
In the face of racism and the daily microaggressions churned out in a white world, Zanyell (she/her) spends years starving herself and self-harming in an attempt to disappear until she...
A disturbing finding in leading TMI Project true storytelling workshops over the past 8 years is the prevalence of sexual abuse among our participants. Early on, I noticed if one...
Katie Anderson (she/her) Way back in Elementary School I learned that the rich kids know how to party. I went to Parochial School in elementary but it became too expensive...
Mourka Meyendorff (she/her) Charlie Vreeland was the bank manager at the Paterson National Bank on Market Street in Paterson, NJ. He was a small, bald-headed man of about 70 and...
Greg Correll (he/him) I was in jail at fourteen, in 1970, for being an incorrigible runaway. It was St. Louis, in a “lost cause” facility where boys from 8 to...
The Story of TMI Project’s Partnership with Coach Jeramie Collins After Tony Porter of A Call to Men and I decided we wanted to work with high school football players...
LGBTQ Rights
This should be a day of celebration, but like many of you, I have spent the last few days in shock; dissociating from this new reality the Supreme Court has...
Before I was introduced to TMI Project I was torn, broken, and felt like damaged goods. To be completely honest, I just wanted to end it all. Today, I live...
Through TMI Project’s week-long intensive workshop and culminating Off-Broadway performance Life Lines: Queer Stories of Survival, Sam (they/them) shared the details of the anguish and despair they felt growing up...
In the 20 years since The Trevor Project launched its life-saving suicide prevention and crisis intervention lifeline for LGBTQ youth, they’ve helped thousands of young people across the country. But...
Blake Pfeil (he/him), Operations and Digital Coordinator Ever since TMI Project announced its upcoming collaboration with the Trevor Project this coming November, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about...
Mental Health Awareness
Back when I get COVID - I haven’t fully processed what I’m going through or how I’m feeling, but a few words come to mind - grim and dark and...
– Kevin Sandell (he/him) I had given the gift of life many times before – in fact, 15 times before since 2007 in places like fire stations and shopping malls....
The number 32 flashes on the screen of the black telephone sitting at the back corner of the desk. The green light flickers on and off, on and off. “32,...
– Aviva Goode (she/her) A week before my father dies, I dream he wants me to take him to the river. There’s no river where he lives in downtown D.C....
Quarandream, Deferred – Adrienne Seraile McWilliams (she/her) When the pandemic began life stopped. I don’t think anyone could envision what was to come. I thought, I’ll spend two weeks at...
Saturday morning Jon and I leave our hotel and walk the one block to the beach. We’re on our first trip since shelter-in-place began, a one-night sojourn to Santa Cruz...
Graduating from college during a pandemic was anticlimactic in many ways. Instead of the big family party we had planned, my parents and I ordered takeout to celebrate the night...
It is not that living through a pandemic was prompting an existential crisis. I simply felt a profound need for something new in my life. I needed to feel free...
– Tracy Rączek (she/her) “A tear in cloth can be too large for a patch” says the Pashtun proverb. Recalling his UN fieldwork in a country where peace and economic...
Her hair, mostly a deep silver with streaks of peppercorn black, is pinned up with a blue rhinestone hair clip. My grandma glides out of the nursing home with a...
– Kathryn Reale (she/her) It is currently 5 am. I have been up since 4, plagued by the information I now carry with resounding devastation and anxiety. What I had...
– Jaymon Bell (he/him) The COVID-19 Pandemic really taught me that it is not physical distance that causes me to lose touch with my friends from the past. It is my...
– Isa Nye (she/her) My mother-in-law arrived last week, a box of ashes. In the last voicemail I have from her, she’s telling me about the train tickets she bought...
I admit I was quite angry when I first learned my wife Michelle and I had COVID-- angry at Patty for having a birthday party, angry at the guests for...
Since 2012, TMI Project has offered two 10-week storytelling workshops a year in collaboration with the Mental Health Association of Ulster County (MHA). The mission of the program is to...
In the face of racism and the daily microaggressions churned out in a white world, Zanyell (she/her) spends years starving herself and self-harming in an attempt to disappear until she...
“All my life I tried to stay quiet no matter what but a noise inside of me has roared to be set free.” Storyteller Cherie Hanley (she/her) wrote and performed...
by Allie Quinn (she/her) In the Fall of 2015, one of my therapists at the Mental Health Association in Ulster County (MHA) suggested I sign up for a TMI Project...
– Hayley Downs, TMI Project Workshop Leader “Remember, I’m not only the Hair Club President, but I’m also a client.” – Sy Sperling, President, Hair Club for Men My colleague...
The Story of TMI Project & Denise Ranaghan of the Mental Health Association of Ulster County’s 5-Year Partnership TMI Project’s work is all about getting people to divulge their deepest...